Melbourne, Australia — Hundreds of thousands of people gathered under a full moon in Australia and New Zealand for dawn church services on Thursday to commemorate their war dead on Anzac Day, as tensions rise in the US-China rivalry. in the region.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon attends a service in Auckland, his country’s largest city, while Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese watched the sun rise at a World War II memorial in the wild lands of Australia’s nearest neighbor, Papua New Guinea.
April 25 is the date in 1915 on which the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed on the beaches of Gallipoli, in northwest Turkey, in an unfortunate campaign that marked the first combat of the soldiers of the First War. World.
Albanese walked to the monument in the town of Isurava for two days with Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape. Isurava was the scene of a major battle where American and Australian troops fought against the Japanese in August 1942.
“Those who signed up for the Second World War grew up in an Australia marked by the memory of the first,” the Nine Network reported Albanese as saying at the meeting.
“Anzac Day has never asked us to exalt ourselves in the glories of war. “Anzac Day asks us to stand against the erosion of time and hold on to their names,” Albanese added.
Marape asked that “peace prevail in all circumstances.”
Albanese is using his trip to underline the long-standing security ties between the two countries that deepened in December last year when he and Marape signed a far-reaching security agreement.
The signing was delayed six months after a security pact between Papua New Guinea and the United States sparked unrest in the South Pacific nation over concerns the country’s sovereignty was being undermined.
Marape said in December that his government’s security agreements with the United States and Australia did not mean it was siding with those allies in its strategic competition with China.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Papua New Guinea at the weekend to discuss building closer relations with Marape.
In New Zealand, Luxon told the crowd that the country had its military personnel to thank for its freedom and democracy.
“It is a sacred day for all New Zealanders. “It’s a chance for us all to stop, reflect, remember and commemorate the great Kiwi servicemen and women past and present who have gone to defend our values,” Luxon said, as reported by news website Stuff.